A Look At Europe's Cartoon Forum with John Bullivant(continued from page 2)

HK: Definitely not at MIPCOM, MIPTV where you see booth after
booth.

JB: Exactly and there is a definite advantage to having a
room full of 100 to 180 people. For it to go incredibly well in that
30 minutes and get a standing ovation at the end, then there's a buzz
on the show. It's very rare that that happens anywhere else. Everybody
feels that buzz. The producers feel the buzz, the distributors do,
as do the broadcasters. I'm not aware of any other forum that achieves
that. That's a distinct advantage. Alternatively, you can kill your
project in 30 minutes. It is a double-edged sword. If you stand up
and make a dog of a presentation and everybody comes in with an enthusiasm,
but leaves thinking that the presentation wasn't really good, you'll
have a very hard time. People will walk out talking about your project
and what they're saying is, 'No, I don't think so.' As a result it
can be instant death because you've exposed it to so many people and
effectively killed it in front of them.

HK: Can you see the Cartoon Forums having a real impact on
business in Europe?

JB: Yes! There are a number of shows that have been financed
through Cartoon Forum. I think it's made a significant contribution
to supporting and developing a strong European animation industry
and will continue to do so. It's got to evolve because Europe is becoming
much more of a significant player. You know there are strong independent
media companies like Hit in the U.K., or as we have now in Germany
EM.TV., IGEL Media, Greenlight International. France has strong producers
but hasn't got those big integrated companies because they haven't
had access to the French stock market yet. Therefore their industry
is evolving from the small studios that came together say seven or
eight years ago and tried to collaborate in order to gain financial
independence. But every year there are new people at the market, who
are benefiting from something that was set up a few years ago. I've
been to a number but I'm not by any means the most long serving attendee.
Cartoon Forum will survive and if people bring good shows, there's
more strength now in the European market to make those happen. It
is kind of leveling the playing film between Europe and North America.

HK: What is the most effective part of Cartoon Forum?

JB: The most effective part of Cartoon Forum is probably the
bar. The nicest thing about Cartoon Forum is the one thing that everybody
rails against; they always choose some God-forsaken remote place that
takes you a whole day to get to! You can guarantee the hotel doesn't
have email points and has faxes that turn into some sort of scroll
when they finally get them delivered to your room. But basically you're
obliged to focus on animation from the European point of view exclusively,
with 70 to 90 percent of the key people in Europe who can make things
happen. It is quite nice actually that we're just doing that exclusively
for 2-1/2 days. It has a very different atmosphere to MIPCOM. It's
much more sociable, much more relaxed. It is still fundamentally sort
of business-orientated and a lot of good projects are seen and picked
up, but it's the bringing together of all the key people within Europe
in what is actually quite a collaborative, as well as competitive,
atmosphere. There are debates about shows -- from how people contribute,
to how a show should be developed -- even if they have no vested interest
in it. They do it willingly and constructively. That's one of the
nicest elements, that people are prepared to do that rather than just
say, 'Why would I want to help one of my competitors?' It's not an
issue. It's a very small industry, we all know each other and, especially
in the U.K., we all socialize with each other as well as compete with
each other. I think that's one of its strongest credentials. The more
it turns into a MIPCOM the more it loses its uniqueness.

HK: Is there anything you'd like to see changed?

JB: The biggest debate is whether we let non-Europeans into
the Forum.

HK: That was my next question and the sort of million dollar
question -- perhaps literally.

JB: I would like to see non-Europeans allowed who are in the
position to invest money in projects. There aren't that many projects
that happen purely on European finance. We need money from the rest
of the world. No non-European, however, should be able to finesse
it to be allowed to present a project. You'd have to toughen up the
criteria on which projects get presented, otherwise you'd find that
people would shove the work into a European company just to get it
exposed. I think you'd have to be quite rigorous in scrutinizing the
origins of each project. It's naïve to maintain "fortress
Europe" in terms of not allowing anybody else in when I'd say
maybe five out of ten European shows need international financing
in order to happen either from distribution companies, potential co-productions
or broadcast sales internationally. We should be really keen to use
other people's money. We should just make sure that the money which
Cartoon invests, which is European money, is going to support the
generation of European ideas, that originate within European companies.
I know that people are very reluctant about that, but people are also
very keen to have non-Europeans in. For the first time I think Buena
Vista Video was allowed to attend. Again on a pre-school show Buena
Vista is in a position to offer a significant source of production
revenue. It's naïve to think that they don't find out about the
projects, and it's actually healthier for the growth of a project's
development and financing for that person to be there at its inception
and put a card down saying, 'I'd be very interested in this. I could
offer this kind of money if you can cover three out of four territories.'
It empowers the producer. I think it's commercially short sighted
now. There were good reasons in the past but now that we're secure
and established in what the event is we should move forward [on letting
non-Europeans in.]